Scot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. McKnight, author of more than fifty books, is the Professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary in Lombard, IL.

http://bookwi.se/ Adam Shields

Andrew Sullivan had a chart on divorce by education. Those with a bachelors and above are at a near 50 year low divorce rate. While those at the low education end of the scale are both less likely to marry and have increasingly high rates of divorce. My guess is that this is both a part of education (because of delays in marriage) and a proxy for income.

Yes, this is something that Charles Murray talks about in detail in his book Coming Apart. The irony he points out is that often we hear politicians and pundits talk of the strong values of the middle class or “middle America”, but in reality, those who are often identified as the “liberal elites” are less likely to be divorced, less likely to have children out of marriage, have abortions, etc.

Andrew Dowling

This is the great paradox of the Christian Right. The adherents of having strict moral standards be legislated are statistically more likely to be engaged in behavior commonly associated with immorality. And . . .surprise, surprise . . their brand of Christianity is usually a variation of the “believe/confess and get your heaven card punched” BS.

The Janitor

In fact I’ve heard of more than one study which has shown that the divorce rate of those who attend church regularly is much lower than the average divorce rate.

The idea that the divorce rate is the same for religious people apparently doesn’t hold up for people who are committed and actively religious.

So when you talk about the “paradox of the Christian Right” what exactly do you have in mind? Are you categorizing anyone who claims to be religious on a survey as part of the “Christian Right”? That would be naive. Or do you have specific studies in mind which document that the persons actually belong to the “Christian Right” and yet are more likely to be engaged in immorality?

Andrew Dowling

“Are you categorizing anyone who claims to be religious on a survey as part of the “Christian Right”?”

I’m characterizing the supporters of the Religious Right as the religious right. Whether or not they fit someone’s definition of being “committed and actively religious” is beside the point.

Also, to say “liberals typically have no moral objections to abortion” is completely inaccurate. There are many activities people of all political stripes find morally objectionable but don’t think is good public policy to be made illegal.

The Janitor

Andrew,

It’s silly to try and pretend that whether someone is actually religious is beside the point when discussing statistics of the *Religious* Right. Tons of people claim to be Catholic simply because they were aptised as Catholic when they were infants or because their parents were Catholic. But if that person doesn’t hold to Catholic doctrine and practice it, there is no meaningful sense in which the person is Catholic or should be grouped together with when consider statistics on Catholics. Same goes for people who claim to be religious.

At any rate, you’ve said that you’re original statement was simply considering those who support the religious religious the “Christian RIght”. So can you point me to the studies which support your claim? Where are the studies which show that “supporters” of the Christian Right are more likely to be immoral?

Next, you claim that my statement about liberals not having a moral objection to abortion is wrong. So can you please provide me with some information that shows liberals typically do have objections to abortion (and what are those objections?)

The claim you’re making seems absurd on the face of it. As Greg Koukle says, abortion either needs no justification or no justification is adequate. Idon’t doubt that some liberals and some conservatives may give lip service to abortion as an “necessary evil” but there is usually no logic behind that rhetoric and it certainly isn’t the typical position.

Andrew Dowling

“Tons of people claim to be Catholic simply because they were aptised as Catholic when they were infants or because their parents were Catholic. But if that person doesn’t hold to Catholic doctrine and practice it, there is no meaningful sense in which the person is Catholic or should be grouped together with when consider statistics on Catholics.”

But every major survey does anyway. Anyone can attempt to “dig down” into criteria of who “really” fits into a group but it becomes a fool’s errand.

One can look at districts and percentages that vote for conservative Christian right candidates in those districts, and then see the corresponding % of divorce, pornographic usage, alcohol abuse etc. In many cases the percentages are so large that a wide overlap is clearly present. It certainly doesn’t imply causation, but it implies hypocrisy.

The Janitor

And so it becomes obvious how flimsy your original claim is.

You claim it’s a fools errand to try and seperate who actually fits into some group. Yet not only is it pretty simple, but it’s been done before. For instance, by asking the persons how often they attend church. Of course that’s not perfect but it goes a much longer way towards weeding out the nominals than your more presumptuous method. And when it has been done in the past (e.g., for divorce stats) it has shown a significant difference.

So one might think you like the ambiguous method simply because it allows you to paint the “Christian Right” as ugly hypocrites. But where we have more careful surveys that picture begins to fall apart.

Secondly who are these “conservative Christian Right candidates” you’re singling out? Are you just assuming that anyone registered as a Republican running for office is a conservative Christian? Again, that would be naive. And it’s equaly naive to assume that someone voting for a conservative Christian Right candidate is themselves a part of the conservative Christian Right! Take someone like Bruce Willis, for instance, who is a fiscal conservative but definitely not part of the Christian Right. No doubt Willis would support a candidate who falls into the more conservative Christian Right spectrum than the Obama spectrum. But to count his lifestyle as being representative of the Christian Right because of who he voted for is an absolute joke… but that joke seems to be the basis of your caricature.

Finally, even if we had direct evidence of higher immorality among conservative Christians over against liberal Christians or plain old secularists that would not indicate hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is not there mere failure of someone or some group to live up to its moral standard (on that account, you would either be numbered among the hypocrites or have the moral standard and lifestyle of a sociopath). Rather, hypocrisy is the claim to a moral standard with no intention of fulfilling that standard. And whether or not conservative Christians are successful in living up to their claimed moral standard does not indicate their intentions to do so.

Andrew Dowling

Hypocrisy is about intentions? LOL. Hypocrisy by anyone’s standard definition is about actions . . ie, some pastor rails on about the sin of homosexuality, but then gets caught meeting male prostitutes in a motel. “Intentions” have nothing to do with it, although of course “the devil” is the typical scapegoat.

If you want to claim hypocrisy is just about actions, then you’re a hypocrite too unless you claim to have perfectly fulfilled the moral code you espouse. Now maybe you’ll be fine with that and say “Sure, we’re all hypocrites” But I don’t think that’s what you had in mind when you pinned it on the Christian Right… you’d just be biting the bullet at that point.

The Janitor

Phil,

It would be interesting to see why that is. Liberals typically have no moral objections to abortion. So why would they have less abortions?

I notice you say they are less likely to have abortions. Less likely *than who*? Less likely than conservatives who oppose abortion or less likely than liberal non-elites or less likely than conservatives who support abortion? That seems like an important question to answer.

And do we have similar information for “conservative elites”? Are the elite among conservatives more likely than the elite among liberals to be divorced, have children out of marriage, etc?

If it happens that liberal elites have less abortions, for example, than non-liberal elites for reasons that are completely unrelated to liberalism per se (e.g., because of economic factors) then it’s really not significant that liberal elites have less abortions than non-liberal elites.

Phil Miller

It has to do with socioeconomic factors more than anything. My point isn’t that liberals have less abortions because they’re liberal, but rather those that we think of as stereotypical liberals live their lives more in line with what we think of as conservative values. Murray’s point throughout the book is that socioeconomic class is the thing that has the most influence on these issues – more than politics, race, or virtually other factor.

The Janitor

Phil,

That’s about what I figured and I had heard something along those lines before. However I also wonder if the study on abortion takes account of contraceptives that are sometimes argued to be abortifacient. For instance, what percentage of the liberal elite has taken RU486? Maybe liberal elites can afford abortifacients and are more prudent to take them than the lower class.

Susanne Hukari

Yes- and wouldn’t that be a reason for us Christians not to talk to much about who should get married and who shouldn’t? Shouldn’t we always support people who want to commit to one another? I ‘love’ it when 1+ times divorced christian brothers and sisters tell 50 year male couple (or female couples) who were together for the last 30 years that they can’t get married- Isn’t there some hypocrisy? Doesn’t God hate divorce too?? And by the way I have been married for 32 years and have no BA. Just spent my life taking care of my husband, kids, grandkids, foster kids, and the church.

josenmiami

Yikes! My first marriage was a smashing success for 38 years (she died of cancer). What are my chances of having a successful 2nd marriage? Maybe i will just stay single. It is not so bad.

The troubling thing to me about the divorce issue is the singular focus on the legal marital status. Stay legally Married, good, get legally divorced, bad. Ok. But what about married but also cheating? What about married but also emotionally abusive, distant, or for all practical purposes, living separate lives. What about married and constantly fighting, lying, hurting? How about married and doesn’t love and has antipathy towards spouse but one is a pastor, or professor at a Christian college, or politician, or married to the superior economic/income spouse? Making legal marital status the only measure of who is getting it right /doing it right and who is not is really not much different than measuring whether someone is a Christian or not by whether they are a legally, on the official membership rolls, member of a church or not.

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Read Scot’s Books

The real Mary was an unwed, pregnant teenage girl in first century Palestine. She was a woman of courage, humility, spirit, and resolve, and her response to the angel Gabriel shifted the tectonic plates of history.

Join popular Biblical scholar Scot McKnight as he explores the contours of Maryâ€™s life, from the moment she learned of God's plan for the Messiah, to the culmination of Christ's ministry on earth. McKnight dismantles the myths and also challenges our prejudices. He introduces us to a woman who is a model for faith, and who points us to her son.

What is the 'Christian life' all about? Studying the Bible, attending church, cultivating a prayer life, witnessing to others---those are all good. But is that really what Jesus has in mind? The answer, says Scot McKnight in One.Life, lies in Jesus' words, 'Follow me.'

What does it look like to follow Jesus, and how will doing so change the way we live our life---our love.life, our justice.life, our peace.life, our community.life, our sex.life---everything about our life.

This book examines conversion stories as told by people who have actually undergone a conversion experience, including experiences of apostasy. The stories reveal that there is not just one "conversion story." Scot McKnight and Hauna Ondrey show that "conversion theory" helps explain why some people walk away from one religion, often to another, very different religion. The book confirms the usefulness--particularly for pastors, rabbis, and priests, and university and college teachers--of applying conversion theory to specific groups.

Parakeets make delightful pets. We cage them or clip their wings to keep them where we want them. Scot McKnight contends that many, conservatives and liberals alike, attempt the same thing with the Bible. We all try to tame it.

McKnight's The Blue Parakeet has emerged at the perfect time to cool the flames of a world on fire with contention and controversy. It calls Christians to a way to read the Bible that leads beyond old debates and denominational battles. It calls Christians to stop taming the Bible and to let it speak anew for a new generation.

The gravity point of a life before God is that his followers are to love God and to love others with everything they've got. Scot McKnight now works out the "Jesus Creed" for high school and college students, seeking to show how it makes sense, giving shape to the moral lives of young adults. The Jesus Creed for Students is practical, filled with stories, and backed up and checked by youth pastors Chris Folmsbee and Syler Thomas.

"When an expert in the law asked Jesus for the greatest commandment, Jesus responded with the Shema, the ancient Jewish creed that commands Israel to love God with heart, soul, mind, and strength. But the next part of Jesus' answer would change the course of history.

Jesus amended the Shema, giving his followers a new creed for life: to love God with heart, soul, mind, and strength, but also to love others as themselves. Discover how the Jesus Creed of love for God and others can transform your life.

"Scot McKnight stirs the treasures of our Lord's life in an engaging fashion. He did so with The Jesus Creed, and does so again with 40 Days Living the Jesus Creed. Make sure this new guide for living is on your shelf." --Max Lucado

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. And...love your neighbor as yourself."

Scot McKnight has come to call this vital teaching of our Lord the Jesus Creed. He recites it throughout the day every day and challenges you to do the same. You may find that, if you do, you will learn to love God more creatively and passionately, and find new ways to love those around you.

What was spiritual formation like during the time of Jesus? As Scot McKnight points out, the early Christians didn't sing in the choir or go to weekly Bible studies, and yet they matured inwardly in relationship with God as well as outwardly in their relationships with each other. How did this happen?

In The Jesus Creed DVD, explore with Scot how the great Shema of the Old Testament was transformed by our Lord into the focal point for spiritual maturity. According to the Jesus Creed (found in Mark 12:29-31), loving God and loving others are the greatest commandments.

Is the practice of faith centered solely on the spirit? Is the body an enemy, or can it actually play a role in our pursuit of God? In this installation of the Ancient Practices Series, Dr. Scot McKnight reconnects the spiritual and the physical through the discipline of fasting.

The act of fasting, he says, should not be focused on results or used as a manipulative tool. It is a practice to be used in response to sacred moments, just as it has in the lives of God's people throughout history. McKnight gives us scriptural accounts of fasting, along with practical wisdom on benefits and pitfalls, when we should fast, and what happens to our bodies as a result.

McKnight discusses the value of the church's atonement metaphors, asserting that the theory of atonement fundamentally shapes the life of the Christian and of the church. This book, the first volume in the Living Theology series, contends that while Christ calls humanity into community that reflects God's love, that community then has the responsibility to offer God's love to others through such missional practices of justice and fellowship.

Scot McKnight, best-selling author of The Jesus Creed, invites readers to get closer to the heart of Jesus' message by discovering the ancient rhythms of daily prayer at the heart of the early church. "This is the old path of praying as Jesus prayed," McKnight explains, "and in that path, we learn to pray along with the entire Church and not just by ourselves as individuals."

Praying with the Church is written for all Christians who desire to know more about the ancient devotional traditions of the Christian faith, and to become involved in their renaissance today.

In the candid and lucid style that has made McKnight's The Jesus Creed so appealing to thousands of pastors, lay leaders, and everyday people who are searching for a more authentic faith, he encourages all Christians to recognize the simple, yet potentially transforming truth of the gospel message: God seeks to restore us to wholeness not only to make us better individuals, but to form a community of Jesus, a society in which humans strive to be in union with God and in communion with others.